you can try and take us (but we're the gladiators)
by abbyli
Summary: Surviving her gunshot wound, Beth is taken by a group bent on destroying Rick and his family. Her memory is wiped and Beth becomes like the dead, an emotionless soldier trained to murder. She is given her first assignment. Kill Daryl Dixon. Captain America: Winter Soldier AU


**entitled: **you can try and take us (but we're the gladiators)

**summary: **He fights her off, pushing her back with enough force so that her hat falls to the ground. Long blond hair spills down her back, revealing the circular scar on her forehead. He stares, her name escaping his lips on a sob. She stares back, her eyes blank. "Who the hell is Beth?" the winter soldier au

**pairing: **beth/daryl, some rick/michonne, merle is alive in this one

**rating: **high t for swearing

**disclaimer: **I do not own The walking dead or it's characters.

**notes: **So with all the 'Beth Survives' and Team Delusional theories floating around on the internet and with the new sneak peek, this idea came to me. So what if Beth survived? What if her body had shut down enough and everyone though she was dead but in reality, she was taken. And what if the people that take her turn her into a brainwashed soldier that is trained to take out Rick and his group? And what if Daryl is the only one that can get through to her?

.

.

.

Three days.

Three horrible days without her.

Three days since that bitch cop had shot a bullet through her head. Three days since her blood had sprayed about and he tasted copper.

Three days since he had lost her.

He felt like he was in a damned haze. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep. He felt like one of those damn walkers that strolled about because - because there was nothing left.

Nothing left since she had left him behind.

He waited.

He kept thinking that perhaps...perhaps this was some horrible dream. That one day he would just wake up and she would be there. They would be back at the funeral home and he would still be falling asleep in the coffin to the sweet sound of her voice.

"Think 'bout that," Rick had whispered, after he had told him what had happened at last. "Think 'bout what she gave to ya in the short time that ya had."

Oh, how he'd like too.

But all he can see is her walking back up to Dawn after the trade. His fingers reached out, only grasping air.

And then - oh, god, and _then..._

He could think about what he would have said to her once they got out of that damn hospital. He could think about how he would have pulled her aside, bent in close and said the words he had wanted to say since she had been taken away in that car.

_I missed ya bad, Greene. _

And he still missed her.

He would always miss her.

And he would always wonder...what if?

* * *

A great gasp ripples her form, causing a hacking cough to rip from her chest. She swallows back in pain, covering her mouth.

"Oh, god..." she mumbles, feeling a raging headache coming on. She raises a hand and feels a turban of bandages wrapped around her skull.

She blinks several times, trying to focus on something in the fog that was her vision.

_What the hell had happened to her? _

"Relax, young'un," comes a voice from her right. Beth shifts her head, blearily gazing in the direction of the voice. And her whole world turns upside down.

"Merle?"

* * *

Washington turns out to be a big fat fucking bust.

After Eugene had 'fessed up that there was no cure, Daryl was highly tempted to put an arrow right through his skull. After all of this, after everything that they had gone through, it turned out to be for nothing.

He thinks about Beth.

She would have been pissed, yes, but she would also have been forgiving. Right now, Rick and Abraham were discussing whether to leave Eugene behind or keep him as part of the group and both were leaning towards the first one. Beth would have put her two cents in, saying that even though Eugene had made a mistake, there was no reason in leaving him behind to be eaten by walkers. No reason at all.

"He lied to us, Rick!"

Abraham is snarling nearby and he looks up to see the bushy haired man standing practically nose to nose with Rick, both of his hands balled into angry fists and his face almost as red as his hair.

Daryl watches Rick's reaction, his eyes searching for anything that reminds him of the old Rick. The old Rick who wouldn't hurt anybody unless they had done something to the people he had loved. Eugene was a fuck up, yes, but he hadn't done anything to hurt them. At least, not intentionally.

_Let 'im stay. Watch him like a hawk. Perhaps he's got somethin' to prove. _

He smirks at Beth's words in his brain, rolling his eyes.

Clampering to his feet, Daryl makes his way towards the two arguing men. With ease, he cuts in between them, turning to face Rick.

"Let the ass stay," he says softly, his voice husky from disuse.

Rick raises both brows. "What're ya sayin'?" he asks.

Daryl shrugs a shoulder. "Eugene may be a dick but he hasn't done nothin' bad yet. Watch 'im like a hawk, perhaps he's got somethin' to prove."

With that, he turns on his heel and walks back to his post, his crossbow cradled cleanly in his hands.

Of course, Eugene ends up staying.

* * *

The man gazes down at her with a familiar smirk that fades almost immediately.

"Who the hell's Merle?" he says before approaching the bed.

Beth had only met Merle briefly during those few weeks at the prison. She had taken the long way around the elder Dixon brother, even when he had acted like the world's biggest jackass and tried to take on three women at the same time. She knew better than to get in the middle of that, so she had left the room and came back with Carol's pistol and shot off a round. Well, it worked and Merle calmed the hell down. That was all that mattered.

And now...now she didn't know where the hell she was.

Swallowing, she searches her brain. What happened to her? What happened last?

And where was she?

'_kay, calm down Beth. Assess the situation. _

She can almost hear Daryl's voice in her head.

Daryl.

Her eyes dart to Merle again and she can't help but wonder.

_Look at your surroundin'. Where ya at? _

A room, a room with a bed and no windows. The walls were white with a grey tinge that left a resemblance to dreariness and pain. And she hated it.

Her hands slide to her head again and she feels at the soft bandages. She slips a finger underneath one at the top of her skull, letting out a cry of pain when she feels the circle of stitches.

A bullet hole.

She had been shot in the head.

But how - how had she survived? People don't walk away from bullets in the head.

As her arm brushes against her cheek, she feels more stitches, Her fingers dart down, just tracing the air above the thick thread.

And then she remembers someone's fist connecting with her cheek bone. Breaking the skin - causing a deep gash.

_Dawn. _

Her blood begins to boil at the mere thought of the woman who had ruined her life and all she feels at that exact moment is true and utter hatred.

But then -

_Dawn's dead. Daryl killed her. _

How does she know that?

Dawn had done something else...Dawn had...

Dawn had been the one to shoot her.

Right in front of Daryl.

_Daryl. _

There's a loud crash and Beth jumps slightly, wincing in pain. Looking up, she sees the white door that Merle stands in front suddenly open and shut, introducing another man.

This man looks to be in his mid-fifties probably, with salt and pepper sandy hair and a chiseled face that showed handsome features from back in the day. Right now, this man is replaced by someone who has seen a lot and his body shows it.

"Ah, yer awake," the man trills with a grin. Beth sees that one of his bottom teeth is missing, showing a large gap in his smile that she can't quite ignore. "Did ya sleep well?"

"Where am I?" Beth asks immediately, trying once again to move from the bed. "What happened to me?"

"Ya were shot, young'un," the man says. "But luckily, we found ya in time and gotcha back."

"And where am I?" Beth asks again, desperately fighting to ignore the debilitating sting in her forehead.

The man smiles again, sliding around Merle and coming to standstill beside her bed. Beth cannot help the way she shrinks from him.

"Ya are at AFTL," the man says. "Army Formation for the True Loyalists."

Beth raises a brow. "'Scuse me?"

"Ya are in the headquarters for the new regime," the man says, his smile becoming unlike anything she has ever seen before. Lethal. Brutal. "Yah, young lady, are going to help us take back the earth from the biters and give it back to the people that stand with us."

"Ya mean, the people that agree with ya," Beth says. "And the people that don't agree with ya?"

"That's where ya come in."

"Where I come in?" Beth repeats, incredulously. "Before ya even assess that I'll help yeh, ya may as well tell me yer name."

The man gazes down at her, his eyes slightly hungry. A shiver travels down Beth's spine and she makes a mental note to stay as far away from this man as she can.

"Jack," he says. "Jack Stevenson."

With that, he turns on his heel and leaves the room. But not before stopping beside Merle and glancing back at her over his shoulder.

"Merle'll be keepin' an eye on ya," he says.

Okay, there goes her escape plan.

"Sleep tight, Ms. Greene."

And then he's gone.

Merle follows the older man without a second glance her way, the door slamming shut behind them with a big heavy thud. A thud that is just so final.

Trying her hardest to ignore the agonizing thudding pain in her head, Beth quickly kicks off the covers and lowers her feet to the chilled floor. A shaky couple of steps later and she is holding onto the equally as cold wall, gulping in as much as oxygen as she can as the world flickers in front of her.

_Think, Greene. Think. _

She had to get out of here. Even then, she knew that everyone believed her dead.

_Maggie...Rick...Daryl..._

She had kept her cool in front of Jack and of the miraculously alive Merle because being at Grady taught her that. Taught her to hold onto those emotions, to bottle them up and keep fighting because that is all she could do in the end.

_Keep fightin', Greene. There ain't no quittin'. _

Crying feels pretty damn good right now.

* * *

They head for the Alexandria safe zone.

As the weeks go by, they start to heal. They start to forget.

All but him.

He watches Judith as she takes her first tottery steps and fights his anger at the fact that Beth isn't here to see them.

There is just so much _wrong _with this picture.

He cannot fight the dreams of her - of her face, untouched by those horrible scars, those blue eyes that are still alive with hope even after all the bullshit.

Feeling her arms wrap around him from behind - no one had held him like that. No one had held him, period.

He can almost hear Merle calling him a pussy for thinking these thoughts.

Taking every bit of strength that he has left in his body, he gets up in the morning and keeps going.

_There is no givin' up. _

She had said those words to him, in the briefest of moments after the prison fell and they escaped together. She breathed them in heavy gasps after they had collapsed in the tall grass after running for seemed like ever. Even then it had occurred to him just how easily they fell into step with each other, even running for their lives.

_Don'tcha dare quit on me, Daryl Dixon. _

No quittin'.

* * *

"Get up, young'un."

Merle's voice is just how she remembered it, low and raspy. Both the Dixon brothers were heavy smokers all their lives but there was a accent to their voices that were the same.

For the briefest of moments, Beth believes she is hearing Daryl.

Then her eyes open and she is unceremoniously plunged back into reality.

Another week had passed. Jack had come to visit her at least two more times, giving her the lowdown on what was too happen. Right now, she was to rest and to heal because she would soon be needed outside to train and to work.

When she was alone, she would search every nook and cranny of this damn tomb for a way out. She was positive that there was some sort of security device, watching her every move and that's why she waited until night.

When Jack would make an appearance and give her that toothless smirk, what she truly wanted was to tell him to go straight to hell, but something was telling her not too. To play along.

She wasn't giving up on getting out of here. Not by a longshot.

Beth peels open her eyelids, wincing at the sudden light right above her. Merle gazes down at her with no expression whatsoever in those formerly cocky, self-righteous eyes.

Beth hadn't bothered to speak to Merle since that first day. When the sonuvabitch wouldn't give her the time of day, that's when she knew.

This wasn't the Merle she knew before.

"What?" Beth mutters, rubbing her now almost healed hand over her eyes.

"Get some clothes on. The boss is waitin' for ya outside."

"Outside?" Beth repeats, now fully awake. "We're goin' outside?"

The Merle she had known would have made some smart-ass remark but he just stands there.

"Dammit," she murmurs, rising slowly out of bed. At the edge of the covers, she sees a gray sweatshirt and black track pants folded into a neat little bundle, with a pair of ratty red sneakers resting beside them.

"Hurry'p," Merle says before he turns to leave. "Jack don't like t'be kept waitin'."

"Well, Jack can kiss my -" the words die in her throat. "Merle..." she tries one last time but the older man holds up his hooked hand.

"Five minutes."

And then he's gone.

* * *

After dressing as quick as she can despite the ache in her ribs and head, Beth waits at the door. There is no inside handle so she guesses that Merle and Jack must've gotten in and out with some remote control.

The door slides open with a loud puff of air releasing and Beth realizes that there is an oxygen pump hooked up to her room.

They could kill her with just the push of a button.

Merle and another man stand there waiting for her. Just as she steps through, the door slam shut behind her and Merle reaches out, gripping his hand on her shoulder. Beth flinches away, harboring a sudden need to take a bite out of the flesh.

"I'm not gonna bolt, ya guys!" she snaps.

Merle and the other big guy don't fight her but they do fall into step on each side, guiding her forward.

As they walk, Beth takes in her new surroundings. They move silently down a black hallway, lit only by the occasional candle. Her eyes adjust to the lingering shadows, but there is no ignoring the rising fear in the pit of her stomach.

Another door greets her, this one as blank and dark as Merle's eyes.

The large man behind her gives her a nudge in the small of her back. Beth hisses just as the door slides open and she tumbles through.

After all the gothic horror movies she had seen, Beth was expecting some sort of office with the creepy villain sitting behind a desk, perhaps holding a severed head or something. She didn't know. What she gets is a hospital set up.

Beth blinks heavily, her eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light. When she can see again, she takes in a gurney set up right in the center of the already claustrophobic room. The gurney is surrounded by machines, one that looks like a heart monitor and another that reminds her of a brain activity sensor. IV poles stand on each side, bags of medication hanging from the hooks.

"Ah, sweet Beth. So nice t'see ya again."

That shiver is returning. Beth glances to her right to see Jack come from nowhere. At that moment, Beth wishes Merle was behind her again.

Not that he was going to help her.

"What's this?" she asks, pointing towards the gurney. Beside Jack is a woman wearing a white coat, her black hair pulled back into a merciless bun at the base of her skull.

"This's the first round of tests," Jack answers politely like they are talking about the weather. "Wouldja sit down?"

"What kinda tests?" Beth asks, making no move towards the bed.

"Just t'check ya over, see how yah head is healin'. We can't have ya faintin' durin' trainin', now can we?"

Beth remains where she is.

"Sit, please," Jack says once again. "Or I will make ya."

She sits.

The nurse stands beside her, taking one arm in her hands and tying a tourniquet around her bicep.

"Wait - what the hell -?"

But it's too damn late.

She feels the prick of a needle and her vision blurs.

* * *

_Growing up, Beth had loved to paint down by the pond. She couldn't actually draw anything to save her life but she did like to experiment with different colors. There would be times that she would give a half-assed attempt at drawing her brother and sister while they roughhoused in the water. Most of the time she would give up and join them for a late afternoon summer swim. _

_One day, she discovered a color. After much mixing and tinkering and just plain goofing off, she found it. _

_It was blue. Yes, blue is a primary color but it was a different shade of blue. This blue was deeper, more lapis lazuli type. So deep that it felt like it was going to just peer into the very soul. _

_Her blue. _

_As the years went on, Beth found herself wondering if she would ever see this color in someone's eyes. Perhaps in their very self. Maybe someone would be wearing a shirt that color. _

_She searched for the blue. _

_And one day, a group of strange people stagger onto her farm. She's seventeen, naïve, freaked out because the world is coming to an end and doesn't even think about her blue. _

_She remembers watching as this group comes onto their property and setting up camp. She remembers seeing one man, one man with coppery dark hair, grizzled handsome features and blue eyes. _

_Looking into this man's eyes, this Daryl Dixon's eyes, she sees blue. _Her _blue. _

_For just a moment, she forgets about the zombie apocalypse, about the end of the world, about everything. All she can think about is that is her blue and she has found it. _

* * *

"Beth? Beth!"

Jack's voice is at her ear and her eyes fly open.

"What the _fuck _didja just do to me?" she demands, attempting to move herself off of the table and finding that she has been bound by the wrists. She pulls at them with all of her might, the metal binds slicing into her still healing skin. She curses under her breath, glancing up at Jack as she moves.

"Looked for the source of ya happiness," Jack says, not abashed by her sudden thrashing. "Daryl Dixon, huh?"

Beth's heart leaps into her throat. "What's't t'ya?" she growls.

Jack steps back, placing a hand over his heart in mock hurt. "What's't t'me?" he repeats, batting his eyelashes. "Why everythin', young'un."

"Stop callin' me that!" Beth snaps, the groaning pain her ribs finally making her flop against the pillow for a breath.

_Think, Beth, think. _

"Daryl Dixon has everythin' t'do with it because y're gonna kill'im for me."

* * *

This can't be happening. It really and truly cannot be happening.

As Beth stares up at the man who had just ordered her to kill - the name couldn't form in her mind - her mind is working at full speed.

How was he going to make her kill Daryl? She'd die first.

"I c'n see yer a bit shook up," Jack says, his smile widening. "Allow me t'explain."

"Explain nuthin'," Beth snaps, managing to pull herself back up into a sitting position. "An' allow me to explain this. Fuck you."

A sudden gasp and she's being pushed back against the pillow, Jack's fingers tight around her throat. Those eyes, those dark emotionless eyes gaze down into her blues and her heart stops for just a moment.

"Listen t'me, ya little bitch," Jack snarls. His breath reeks of stale cigarettes and whiskey, causing her eyes to water. "I want Rick Grimes dead! 'N the best way to him is through the people that he surrounds himself with. Daryl Dixon's his right hand man."

"Who's t'say I can beat 'im?" Beth manages around Jack's fingers.

Jack releases her jaw, leaning back. "Oh, ya will, young'un. Soon enough, ya will." He nods at the woman in the white coat who quickly steps past him, holding a long syringe between two fingers. Beth tries to move, she really does but the woman is too fast and then -

Oh, god.

Images flood in front of her eyes.

Maggie's smile.

Shawn's stupid cowboy hat that she hated.

Her daddy's knarled hands, so soft and gentle despite the years of abuse to them.

Rick's embrace, Judith's chubby cheeks.

Daryl.

And they are disappearing.

She cries out, reaching out. Trying to hold on.

_No. _

_Nononono. _

Maggie's smile fades, leaving behind an empty blank space that cannot be filled. One by one, each of those things that mean the most to her are just gone.

Except that color.

That damn shade of blue.

And then she lets go, slipping into an abyss of blue the color of Daryl's eyes.

**.**

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**AHHHHHHHHHHHH! So after rewatching 'The Winter Soldier', this theory plopped itself into my mind.**

**I know I stated this theory before but I actually am starting to believe that Beth is alive and that Rick faked her death to protect her and the ones that love her. His reaction to her death was just too damn calm, you know? Whenever he loses a member of his group, he goes all Rambo. Despite looking shaken, he didn't act. When Lori died, he went on a zombie killing spree and attacked Glenn. When Carl was threatened, he disemboweled the guy that hurt him. When Hershel was beheaded, Rick flipped and immediately began shooting. He didn't even blink. I actually thought he was going to be the one to put the bullet in Dawn's head. **

**I loved Merle. Yes, he was a jackass and a dick but his one weak spot was Daryl. When it came to Daryl, then he would react the right way. I wanted to write him back in because I think he gives such a good balance to Daryl and even to Beth. Definitely would have enjoyed seeing some of Season 4 Beth and Merle scenes. She wasn't afraid anymore and she definitely would have ripped him a new one. AND Merle would have immediately picked up on Daryl's feelings for Beth. Merle is not going to be a third part to a triangle, that's all I can say right now. No triangles. I shall go into how he survived, of course. **

**Review? **


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